Congrats to the Florida Gators on winning the national championship. Their 41-14 crushing of Ohio State was eerily similar to USC’s 55-19 smashing of Oklahoma a couple years ago. What was the common thread in the blowouts? Clearly, it was the use of sophisticated offensive schemes against defenses that had hitherto had very little contact with such creativity.
Commentators are wondering why it was that Ohio State played so poorly. Many are ascribing this to Florida’s speed and various other factors. There’s no doubt that Florida’s athleticism on defense was a key. Also, as I’ve said here all season, the Big Ten was horribly down this year and Ohio State had really never been tested.
But, let’s get to the core of things here. When Urban Meyer was hired in 2005, I wrote Florida was set to be the next great power in college football. Why? Mainly because of the impending marriage of Meyer’s spread offense with the outstanding talent that he had on hand in Gainesville. It was the same combination that made USC so powerful from 2002-2004: Great scheme and great talent mixed together to create a perfect storm.
Of course, many scoffed at such a notion. There was no way Meyer’s scheme would ever be successful in the SEC, said the critics. He may have been successful at Utah and Bowling Green, but he won’t do as well in a real league, said others. Still more thought that scheme was overrated, that it was more important to ‘execute.’ What was to be executed, apparently, was irrelevant. I disagreed.
But there was a reason why Florida’s receivers were open all night and a reason why Ohio State was utterly confused on defense. It was because of the advanced nature of the Florida offense, which utilized 29 different formations in its first 36 plays, which hid its tendencies by using sometimes outlandish personnel groupings and which found ways to spread out a Buckeye defense that was more used to grinding it out in the trenches against the likes of Penn State and Wisconsin.
Florida relied on its unpredictability to gain advantage on offense. Does anyone think that the Gators would have been as successful against OSU if they had run the same offense as, say, Wisconsin? Talent was big in this game, but not the deciding factor. About 30 to 40 Buckeyes from this game will play in the NFL, make no mistake about that. The deciding factor in this game was Florida’s superior offensive scheme.
I’ve been touting the importance of scheme in college football since before the 2005 season when I extolled the offenses of Florida, Boise State, Louisville, Utah, Cal and USC–the original Gang of Six. I felt these schools were utilizing some extraordinarily effective offensive systems that enabled their programs to succeed well beyond the levels that their talent would normally provide. Was it an airtight group? No. At the time, I didn’t know that both Utah and USC would abandon their proven systems for more orthodox approaches. But the gist of what I was pointing out was correct, and a look at the rest of the group on this January afternoon in 2007 reveals that Cal is 10-3 and coming off a 45-10 win over Texas A&M, Boise State is undefeated and No. 5 in the country after a classic win over a much more talented Oklahoma team, Louisville is 12-1 and No. 6 after winning the Big East and Florida is at the top of the heap after knocking off the overwhelming favorite, Ohio State.
Now unless you think that Boise’s and Louisville’s talent level is among the best in the counry, you have to give their offensive schemes their due. And you have to give credit to Florida for getting through its schedule despite using a quarterback (Chris Leak) who was ill-suited for its offense. Kinks still have to be worked out–Tim Tebow will solve most of them–but the Gators triumphed with a superior offensive system and a defense that ate a rather mundane scheme alive.
Many hold disdain for these ‘college-style’ systems and prefer more ‘pro-style’ systems. But, ‘college-style’ has won the last four national titles. ‘College-style’ is what killed the dinosaur.
Scoreboard, baby.
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